Victims find closure in Patel guilty verdict

[Aard Vark]

Victims of Dr Jayant Patel and their families say they have finally found closure after the surgeon once dubbed "Dr Death" was found guilty of killing three patients and permanently injuring another yesterday.

Judy Kemp, whose husband Gerry bled to death at the hands of Dr Patel during a botched operation, said she was relieved to see the 60-year-old finally brought to justice.

"It's been a long five years but it's all over," she said.

"It's just all confusing, but I'm just so happy ... I'm free, I'm free....It's closure alright."

Patient advocate Beryl Crosby said it was a huge day for all involved.

"I hope with all my heart that these people and their families can move on," she said.

"For a lot of people this is going to be closure.

"The verdict was guilty, it doesn't matter what happens from here."

Stony-faced, Dr Patel stood in the dock yesterday afternoon as the Brisbane Supreme Court jury announced he was guilty of the manslaughter of Mervyn Morris, Gerardus Kemps and James Phillips.

The jury also found him guilty of causing grievous bodily harm to Ian Vowles.

Patel has been remanded in custody until tomorrow, when he'll be back in court for sentencing.

He faces up to 10 years in jail.

It's expected his legal team will appeal the convictions.

The charges all relate to Patel's time as director of surgery at the Bundaberg Base Hospital between 2003 and 2005.

Justice John Byrne agreed to a request by crown prosecutor Ross Martin SC to delay sentencing Patel until Thursday morning.

Justice Byrne, however, refused to allow the former doctor to remain on bail until then.

Mrs Patel left the courtroom in tears as her husband - who became known in Queensland as "Dr Death" after he fled to the US in 2005 - was led from the dock to the cells, and she declined to speak to waiting media outside the court.

During the trial the court was told Patel caused the deaths or injuries by performing the wrong operations on the wrong patients, in a hospital that could not support this sort of major surgery.

Prosecutor Ross Martin said there was evidence Patel was a man driven by "toxic ego", who performed surgeries that were beyond his level of skill.

The court heard Patel caused Mr Morris' death in June 2003 because he failed to properly investigate the cause of his rectal bleeding, and unnecessarily removed part of his colon.

Mr Phillips, 46, was so unwell that he was an unsuitable candidate for an oesophagectomy performed by Patel in May 2003, and the hospital's intensive care unit was ill-equipped to manage his post-operative care.

Mr Kemps died because Patel rushed an oesophagectomy without proper planning, and then allowed him to bleed to death.

The court was told Patel then failed to diagnose Mr Kemps' internal bleeding, and delayed taking him back into theatre.

He then stitched the patient back up while he was still bleeding profusely.

The jury was told Patel caused Ian Vowles grievous bodily harm in October 2004 by unnecessarily removing a large section of his bowel, despite polyps showing no signs of cancer.

The court was told Patel came to Bundaberg knowing that he had been disciplined for "gross negligence" in the US in 2000.

Under the US order, he was required to seek a second opinion when performing major operations like oesophagectomies.

While this order did not affect his legal ability to undertake such procedures in Australia, Patel failed to disclose this information to his colleagues, employers or patients.

Before retiring to deliberate, the jury was told they could consider whether knowledge of previous disciplinary action for gross negligence would have affected the patients' decision to give their consent, or whether it would have given Patel cause to reflect on his own abilities in offering the surgery to them.

What a victory for the rest of us. I only wish every Doctor could be held accountable for their actions or lack of what ever the case may be. For to long to many doctors have been sitting safely behind a curten of "I'm a Doctor You can't touch me"
I was left with cronic pain and told by my surgen "It's has nothing to do with my work you are cured. IF you have pain you must have been dropped at berth"
I did ask a solistiter what I should do and was told "There's nothing I can do to help you. You signed the waver and that says you can not sue him"
Now we have one doctor charged with 4 counts of murder / manslater but he is only getting 10 years! The bastard should be getting the same as the man who helped his terminally ill wife die 25years or what about someone who kills 4 stranges and goes away for life.

Doctors should be under the same justice system as the rest of us.

[Gob]

Hang the bastard.

[Lord Jim]

He faces up to 10 years in jail.

How on Earth, can anyone call that justice?

[Aard Vark]

HE's a doctor and they are above the laws of ordenary men.

What is the differance between God and doctors?








God doesn't think he is a doctor

[The Hen]

He hasn't recived his sentence yet, Aardy. He is going to appeal the conviction before the sentence has been delivered.

The 10 years was Queensland media speculation and nothing more. It isn't even the maximum given for this offence.

But it does sound like Patel and his lawyers potentially could pull off the appeal.

'The Patel trial was breaking new ground before it reached its dramatic climax last night with the guilty verdicts'

THE jury that last night convicted surgeon Jayant Patel delivered its bombshell verdict without knowing how close the marathon trial came to being aborted.

Only now can the behind-the-scenes court drama be reported, along with the judge's ominous warnings, issued in the absence of the jury, that the guilty verdicts against Patel on three counts of manslaughter, and a fourth of causing grievous bodily harm, may not survive the appeal his lawyers flagged last night.

From day one of the trial, Judge John Byrne highlighted a possible flaw in the prosecution's case against the surgeon: the issue of consent.

Much to Justice Byrne's expressed frustration, the history-making trial "just sailed on".

On day eight, he raised another potential trial-stopper-- section 288 of Queensland's Criminal Code, which says a surgeon must have reasonable skill and use reasonable care.

This was the very section the prosecution's case hung upon. The jury knew nothing of these blips. As is standard practice, legal argument occurred in their absence.

Again, the trial continued, examining reams of medical documents and hospital files, quizzing doctors, nurses and specialists about details of the care given to Mervyn Morris, Gerry Kemps, James Phillips and Ian Vowles.

That was the trial the jury knew: the evidence, the facts.

But 11 weeks in, the issues raised by Justice Byrne at the very beginning were cast into sharp relief.

The evidence wasn't falling exactly as prosecutors expected. Instead of the experts criticising the way Patel performed in the operating room during surgery -- many said he had performed competently -- most were agreeing the surgeries should not have performed at all.

Earlier in the trial, the Crown in effect switched the legal focus of its case from section 288 to controversial section 282 of the Queensland Criminal Code, which allows doctors to perform abortions to save the life of the mother but has broader applications, to reflect the way the evidence had panned out.

The jury was excused from the court proceedings for more than a week, leaving some of the state's finest legal minds to wrestle with what might seem an elementary issue: the legal basis for charging Patel with unlawful killing of three of his patients, and the grievous bodily harm of another. Could a surgeon be held criminally responsible for wrongly deciding to operate on a patient, who consented to the operation, but later died?

The judge described as "most undesirable" the situation he confronted: to be forced to examine the state's 111-year-old criminal code two months into one of the highest-profile trials in Queensland's history.

Making the legal issues all the more perplexing was the fact that criminal negligence cases of this kind, involving medical practitioners, are rare, not only in Queensland, but in Australia.

In fact, it became clear that section 288 of the Criminal Code had never been successfully invoked in Queensland.

The Patel trial was breaking new ground before it reached its dramatic climax last night with the guilty verdicts.

The problem for the Crown was that section 288 appeared to deal only with the surgeon's conduct inside the operating theatre -- apparently excluding from criminality misdiagnoses and wrongful decisions to operate.

Most of the experts appeared to agree that, with the possible exception of Patel's surgery on Gerry Kemps, the operations were performed competently. But the consensus was that he had misdiagnosed the four men -- who all consented to surgery -- and had operated on them when he probably shouldn't have.

Michael Byrne QC, for Patel, argued that if the Criminal Code did not recognise misdiagnoses and wrongful decisions to operate as potential criminal acts, the real-life consequences would be disastrous.

If the Criminal Code was interpreted in this narrow way, GPs could wrongly diagnose someone with a cough as having lung cancer, remove a lung, and repeat the process time and time again without facing criminal charge, he said.

This prompted Justice Byrne to question whether the Queensland parliament had thought of such an outcome, or had deemed that such behaviour should be dealt with by professional disciplinary actions and civil lawsuits. Finally, after days of deliberation and argument, Justice Byrne came to a conclusion that may serve to clarify previously murky waters.

He ruled in favour of the Crown, allowing the trial to go ahead. But, perhaps more importantly in the long term, he decided that section 288 applied to not only the act of surgery, but to the administration of surgical treatment more generally, including advice and diagnoses given to the patient by the surgeon.

Patel "is not absolved from criminal responsibility for the adverse outcomes to his patients merely because he had their consent for the procedures and performed them with reasonable skill and care", Justice Byrne ruled.

And so, at the end of its 11th week, it appeared the blockbuster trial would continue to sail on.

However, just days later, when prosecutors finally presented new particulars -- the legal and evidentiary basis on which they would prove their case -- Patel's defence lawyers went on the attack.

The surgeon's legal team argued that the jury should be discharged because its members had heard day after day of emotive evidence -- some of it from dead patients' family members -- which was not relevant to the Crown's new case and was highly prejudicial to Patel.

The future of the trial was hanging by the slightest of threads -- with the jury, and the general public, none the wiser.

Justice Byrne was again "exasperated", accusing the defence of not pressing the Crown for proper particulars until after the Crown had virtually closed its case, suggesting that it may have been a tactical move.

He flagged that this was a treacherous path, and one that could become an issue at the Court of Appeal, should the jury convict the surgeon. Eventually, Justice Byrne decided the trial should continue. He acknowledged that discharging the jury would be "extraordinary" and that was not needed to secure a fair trial.

But the saga is not over yet. Now that Patel has been convicted, his legal team is trying to take the fight to the Court of Appeal for a ruling on the correct statutory route to convict a surgeon of manslaughter.

The trial may be over, but the minefield that is the law governing the state's -- and the nation's -- doctors is just beginning to be revealed.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/na ... 5885898905

[Aard Vark]

I will always remember back in the 70s a man went on a shooting spree in Brisbane. He shot the five doctors and sergens that "killed his wife. All had private rooms in town and this "mainiac " as the press called him, went from office to office forcing his way in and just one or two shots each.
His wife died from complications after surgery that was later seen as unnessesary. As far as I know he spent the rest of his life inside. Not one of the doctors was ever concidered at fault for the`death of their patiente.

After how I was treated by a specalist and others I met I understand why anyone could go over the edge and start killing doctors. Sadly ifa member of one of Partel"s victems was to kill him they are looking at life.

Once again I say Doctors are above the laws of ordenary men

[Sue U]

Once again I say Doctors are above the laws of ordenary men

It seems they've made it so in Aus, and that is the entire thrust of the so-called "medical malpractice tort reform" campaign here in the U.S.: shielding doctors (and their insurance companies) from being held accountable for the consequences of their negligence.

Joanne Doroshow
Executive Director, Center for Justice & Democracy
Posted: November 9, 2009 09:41 AM

Medical Malpractice Tort Reform - We Are Already Suffering and Don't Need More

If you listened to the rants and harangues of those trying to kill the House health care bill on Saturday, you couldn't miss the endless blathering about tort reform, a term that almost no one really understands unless you happen to be a victim of medical malpractice or corporate wrongdoing. And then, you know.

Tort "reform" is a doozy of a misnomer. There is certainly nothing positive or beneficial about it. Tort reform laws, which now exist it nearly every state (although you'd never guess that after listening to those complaining how much we need it), make it more difficult for average people who have been injured, assaulted, or harmed in any way, to sue those responsible. The tort reform movement was created and funded by insurance companies, manufacturers of dangerous products, the tobacco industry, the medical profession, and other industries and professions. This movement is backed by enormous sums of money funneled primarily into conservative "think-tanks," public relations, polling and lobbying firms. Tort reforms always hurt patients, consumers and average people. They are also extremely dangerous for the rest of us.

Even the Congressional Budget Office, who guessed there could be "savings" from enacting national menu of brutal "tort reforms," cites studies showing that if enacted, thousands more would die every year. Some savings. What's more, chances are you already live in a state with brutal "tort reform" laws on the books. Ask the Olsen family from California or the Gourleys from Nebraska, both with severely disabled teenage boys who traveled to Washington D.C. last month to plead that Congress not do to the entire country what lawmakers already did to them.

Steven Olsen is blind and brain damaged because, as a jury ruled, he was a victim of medical negligence when he was two-years-old. He fell on a stick in the woods while hiking. Under the family's HMO plan, the hospital pumped Steven up with steroids and sent him away with a brain tumor, although his parents had asked for a CAT scan because they knew Steven was not well. (So much for "defensive medicine.") Steven Olsen came back to the hospital comatose. Had he received the $800 CAT scan, which would have detected a growing brain mass, he would have his sight and be healthy today.

A jury awarded $7.1 million in non-economic damages for Steven's avoidable life of darkness and suffering. However, the jury was not told of a two-decade-old cap on non-economic damages in the state -- the very law that conservatives want imposed on the nation and that CBO "scored." The judge was forced to reduce the amount to $250,000. The jurors only found out about it by reading it in the newspaper, provoking the jury foreman write a scathing letter to the editor in the San Diego Union Tribune about this horrible California law.

Colin Gourley suffered terrible complications at birth as a result of a doctor's negligence. He has cerebral palsy. He could not speak until he was five. Irregular brain waves and the amount of time he has spent in a wheelchair have affected his bone growth. He has been through many surgeries. His twin brother, Connor, survived without injury.

A jury ruled that Colin was a victim of medical negligence, finding that $5.625 million was needed to compensate him for his medical care and a lifetime of suffering. But Nebraska's law -- a cap on damages -- severely cut this jury verdict to a fraction of what Colin needs. As a result, Colin will have to rely on the state for assistance for the rest of his life. His family had to move from their home to pay for his care. They are now having to fight Medicaid for Colin's continuing treatment.

In 1975, Indiana lobbyist Frank Cornelius, whose clients included the Insurance Institute of Indiana, helped secure passage of "tort reform" in Indiana. As he wrote in the New York Times on October 7, 1994,

I argued successfully that such limits would reduce health-care costs and encourage physicians to stay in Indiana -- the same sort of arguments that now underpin the medical industry's call for national malpractice reform. Today, from my wheelchair, I rue that accomplishment.

That is because beginning in 1989, Cornelius experienced a series of medical catastrophes -- malpractice -- that resulted in his "wheelchair confinement, respirator-assisted breathing and constant physical pain." The law he helped pass prevented him from receiving enough compensation for this. He has since died.

The vast majority of states already have "tort reform." Right now, the medical profession has more liability protections than any profession in the nation. They don't need more, and we don't need more.

Source: HuffPo last year

[Aard Vark]

I would like to ask Partel if a Machanic did unnessesary work on his car and charged for an engien rebuild, replaced the brakes, cooling and heating systems, new suspension and stuffed it all up. The result his car's brakes don't work sending him into a post, only leaving him with miner ingeries.
Do you think Partel would sue the Machanic? Of corse he would but I can't see a differance between what Partel did and a dodgy grees monkey.

In fact if this was to happen and someone was hurt eg: pedestrean near that post would have a cause to sue the machanic .
But a doctor is free of this threat what is the differance? What is the differance? Doctor goes to UNI for 4 years and can start work as a resident in a hospital for 2 years on a good wage and after a few more he will have the quoliffications to open his own pratice. Doctors charge $35 to $80 a patient, most people see a doctor for 15 to 25 minets, so on the best rate that is about $20 an hour. (Partel was getting the highest rate possible)
A tradesman will spend 4 years learning his trade then many years working for other getting only $25 to $30 an hour (some get more) till they have saved enough to start out on their own. When they might turn out around $100 an hour with all the insurance and overheads that go with the buisness.
What is the Differance? not much if you ask me both take years to get to the top but Tradesmen are not given the same respect or if they make a mistake they get sued or end up in prision.
( What is the differance between a Doctor and a Plumber? Nothing both can bury their mistakes.)

The only thing needed to be put forward in this is Partel lied, he lied to everyone involved in his getting the job in the first place (The person in the public service who accepted his aplication should go to prison as well)

If you have a look at some of the early everdence the Nurses in Bunderberg hospital made hundreds of complaints about Partel. What were they told "Shut up or you lose your jobs" or the Nurse that did take it ferther isn't being seen as a hero she was pushed into the back ground and what she has had to say is being kept out of the prosedings because of her hatered of Partel. Funny you lie you get a cheery job you tell the truth and you get sacked and treated like a scumbag.

Lastly before I flog this pore horse to death.
A very smart person once said Why is a Dotor's place of work called a practice? Because a Doctor will only ever practice his trade. A Tradesman must know his work and do it without any dought of his abillities.

[SisterMaryFellatio]

We are in Bundaberg at the moment, and the general concensus here is he needs to get life! Don't think its gonna happen but thats what the people want!

[Sean]

I'd like to know how he got through the interview...

Interviewer: Name please?
Patel: Doctor Death.
Interviewer: Next...

[The Hen]

OK. The sentence was less than reported.

Seven years.

I am disgusted.

I am sure the legal reasoning makes sense legally. It just doesn't seem to make sense commonly.

(I'll try and find a good write up of the sentencing.)

[The Hen]

Got one!

Patel jailed for 7 years



Jayant Patel has been sentenced to seven years in jail for the manslaughter of three patients at Bundaberg's Base Hospital between 2003 and 2005.

Prosecutors had asked Justice John Byrne to jail the 60-year-old former surgeon for more than 10 years after his convictions for three counts of manslaughter and one of grievous bodily harm.

Patel's lawyers said a four to five-year jail sentence was warranted, given Patel's lack of criminal history, the public vilification he has suffered since returning to Australia and that jail would be particularly harsh for Patel.

Patel had pleaded not guilty to the manslaughter of 75-year-old Mervyn Morris, 77-year-old Gerardus Kemps and 46-year-old James Phillips.

He also pleaded not guilty to causing grievous bodily harm to 63-year-old Ian Vowles during his time working as a surgeon.

Justice Byrne briefly recounted Patel's treatment of the four men involved before telling Patel he had shown repeated serious disregard for the welfare of his patients.

He said that while the absence of any intention by Patel to harm his patients was significant, the jury's verdicts meant Patel had shown such moral guilt that he deserved to be punished as a criminal.

Justice Byrne told Patel that the legal system must make it clear that the community, acting through the court, denounced his repeated serious disregard for the welfare of his patients.

He said Patel's judgment in taking each patient to surgery was so thoroughly reprehensible that he deserved to be punished as a criminal.

Justice Byrne said he took into account as mitigating factors that prison would be particularly harsh for Patel given his notoriety and that Patel spent six months in jail in the US while awaiting extradition.

Patel will be eligible for parole after serving half of his sentence.

'Happy with outcome'

Gerardus Kemps' widow, Judy Kemps, said it was just fine by her that Patel would spend years behind bars.

"That's fine by me, I'm very happy with the outcome, you couldn't have wished for better," she said.

"For me the conviction was the main thing. He's been found guilty and whatever they do after that it doesn't worry me.

"My only aim has always been to stop him from doing further damage."

Former Patel patient Beryl Crosby - who is also an advocate for patients who suffered at the hands of the former surgeon - said she is thrilled to know he will spend seven years in jail for his crimes.

Another former patient, Linda Parsons, endured a botched hernia operation. She said she was overjoyed with the sentence, but it was the guilty verdict that mattered most.

"I was never concerned with how long he got. I was after the guilty verdict," she said.

"I just feel like five years of my life has been lifted away and I feel very teary right now."

Whistleblower Toni Hoffman says the sentence is suitable.

"Our society has spoken and it's a good result. [There are] a lot of lessons to be learnt," she said.

"Our legal system has to reflect us as a society and our needs as a society and at the moment it's done that, so I think we should just be grateful for that."

Patel has been remanded in custody since the guilty verdict on Tuesday. The jury took six-and-a-half days to reach the verdict and handed down its decision in the Supreme Court in Brisbane.

Lengthy trial

The defence claimed Patel had always acted in the best interests of his patients, who had consented to the operations.

But prosecutor Ross Martin, who characterised Patel as a "bad surgeon motivated by ego and suffering from lack of insight", urged the jury to return guilty verdicts on all charges.

He told the jury the trial was about "judgments" and that Patel's negligence extended to his poor decisions about when to operate, and his choices about appropriate post-operative care.

In summing up last Wednesday, Justice Byrne reminded the jury that Mr Martin neatly summarised the Crown's allegations when he said: "Over 19 to 20 months there had been poor decision-making, misdiagnosis, performing surgery on patients who could not withstand it, performing surgery at the wrong hospital and the removal of healthy organs".

However, Patel's defence team had urged the jury to find Patel not guilty, saying he always acted in the best interests of his patients.

Defence barrister Michael Byrne, QC, told the jury much of the evidence presented by the crown during the marathon trial had been fuelled by "a great deal of second-guessing and use of hindsight".

"With hindsight it may have been the wrong call [to operate on Mr Kemps] but that does not make the decision criminally negligent," Mr Byrne said.

Justice Byrne warned the jury against using the benefit of hindsight in making their judgment about whether or not Patel was criminally negligent in proceeding with the operations.

Patel's Supreme Court trial began in Brisbane in March 2010 and has become one of the longest Supreme Court criminal trials in Queensland's history.

- ABC/AAP

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010 ... ion=justin

[Aard Vark]

I was watching the news this morning and the statement
"The age of the defendant, distance from his family and the fact he is a doctor and medical mistakes can be unforseen."

I still don't understand why anything other than he lied to everyone wasn/t enough to put him away for life.
Wonder if I start killing people and claim I am attempting to administer a medical treatment and I am a docotr from the US I will get a reduced sentance?

The worst part of this sentance is most people would have each case killing added on to the time served. So 7 years for each death plus time for the GBH. Total 25 years and any private claims against his estate. guess whay he might even be saved from any compensation suits.


I hope he goes to Wacol Prison The boys there will Love that chubby Indian butt